Amelioration
by TacticianLyra
Summary: Eva isn't the only member of the Earth Team to have a difficult childhood. (Will eventually be rewritten as an actual fic.)


_They stare at each other for a few minutes. He hadn't even realized that someone else was taking shelter from the rain under this bridge._

 _"What's your name?" he asks finally._

 _No reply comes from the other kid, who continues to watch him silently._

 _He frowns a little. "You…have a name, right?"_

* * *

When Miguel had put together that net trap, he'd expected to catch a raccoon or two—those were the usual culprits of tearing through trash-cans.

It is _not_ a pair of raccoons in the net.

Instead, it's the local street urchins—he'd heard others in the neighborhood griping about them for three-fourths of the year, but he hasn't actually seen them himself until this moment.

One of them is dark-haired and pale with seawater-blue eyes, barely a scrap of a kid, shaking like a leaf and looking ready to cry any second.

The other is the polar opposite, dark-skinned with red hair, and this boy is just _glaring_ at him.

After a few long moments of them all just staring at each other, the man sighs, saying, "Y'know if you wanted food, you could've just asked," before letting the net down.

The redhead is off and running as soon as he gets to his feet, briefly stopping to look over his shoulder. "Koji, c'mon!" he shouts, motioning with his arm.

The other—Koji, apparently—just shakes their (his?) head a little, mumbling something. The redhead pauses, biting his lip and throwing Miguel another suspicious glare, before making his way back over.

Their clothes are faded and pockmarked with holes.

It occurs to the garage owner that they've probably been like this for a while, if they've fallen into silent conversations like they're doing now.

* * *

 _"Huh?"_

 _The kid mumbles again, louder this time—it sounds like gibberish to him, but one part sounds like it might be a name._

 _"Koji?" he tries after a bit of thought._

 _The kid nods, smiling just a little bit, before shuffling over to sit next to him._

* * *

The redhead seems…out of place, somehow, inside the house. High-strung and ready to bolt at a moment's notice, eyes darting around anxiously.

The smaller kid seems calm enough (How old are they? Koji looks to be about six, if not a bit younger, and that's a little concerning), even if he hasn't said anything understandable yet.

Definitely Asian, he just isn't sure which specific language. His name implies Japanese.

It's when any question given him got a puzzled look in response that the possibility of him not knowing too much in terms of English comes up.

The redhead is stubbornly refusing to say what his own name was, and doesn't seem willing to speak much either.

They're gone when he comes back from the garage to double-check a finished repair job; the door's left open, and all of the sausage he'd made is gone too.

* * *

 _Koji doesn't seem to be able to see close things too well._

 _He's tripped over tree roots a few times already, even though he'd been looking right at them._

 _He shares his trick for walking around on the really dark nights, and it works._

 _It means they have to get around a little slower, but it's okay._

* * *

It's four months later—in the dead of one of the worst winters he'd seen yet—when they show up again, in the fashion of frantic doorbell-ringing.

At first Miguel assumes it's for someone to put down a last-second job-scheduling, but when he opens the door, Koji is staring back at him, more scraggly-haired and clothes in worse shape than last time, a fearful look on his face.

The redhead is standing a ways behind him, looking more than a little listless as he's leaning against the mailbox.

It doesn't take him long to realize that the still-unnamed kid has a fever.

* * *

 _A frown was followed by some wordless mouth-motions, before a tentative, halting reply comes. "Stan?"_

 _He grins in response—it only took three minutes for him to say it right. "Yep, that's me!"_

 _The response must catch Koji off-guard, because he grins back._

* * *

105.3. That is _not_ a good temperature for a kid his age, which he's putting at a hesitant eight.

The kid is curled up into a miserable ball on the couch, the singular fleece blanket that's in the house wrapped around him. Koji's sitting on the floor near the couch, looking lost.

The mechanic is partially worried that if he runs to the pharmacy to pick up some medication, he'll come back and they'd be gone again, but if he didn't…he doesn't really want to think about what might happen if the fever spiked.

So he goes out anyways.

* * *

 _He doesn't want to get up that morning, because he feels too warm and too cold at the same time, and he's sore all over._

 _But he's hungry (not really; his stomach feels like it's doing flips and it's uncomfortable) and they hadn't found anything to eat yesterday._

 _So he makes himself get up anyways._

 _It isn't until he realized there was a blank spot in his memory, that he was lying on the ground when the last thing he knew he was walking, and that Koji was giving him a terrified look that he starts thinking that maybe he's sick._

* * *

He gets a few odd looks on the way there, and a few more on the way back.

He has a reputation for being…well, not _unfriendly_. Just—difficult to approach.

Miguel generally doesn't like kids much, either. The local rascals have a tendency to get into things they shouldn't and he's had to replace broken windows more than a few times.

The neighborhood gossip was going to have a blast with this, if anyone saw him ushering the local urchins inside.

Which, with his luck, is probably what happened.

Hell, Amelia was probably to have been the one to seen.

* * *

 _Koji doesn't like crossing the street._

 _Especially near four-way intersections._

 _Trying to get him to cross the highway in the middle of the night, which is when it's quietest, is more than a lost cause—that's the only reason they stay in this town._

 _He tries to ask about it the next morning, but doesn't gotten any sort of response at all._

 _Just a fearful stare._

* * *

They're still there when he comes back.

Both are on the couch, fast asleep and huddled together under the blanket.

* * *

 _Talking to him is always a little difficult._

 _At the best of times, it's a game of charades._

 _At the worst of times, they end up irritably shouting at each other for a while before staying quiet for a while longer, trying again later._

 _All times, more often than not, start with something drawn in the dirt/snow/mud as a reference point._

 _The question given to him this morning isn't one he wants to share the answer to yet._

 _Maybe eventually, but right now…he just bring himself to talk about it._

 _He doesn't want to think about it either._

* * *

"I c'n take care of m'self," the redhead mumbles for the fifth time, scowling a little.

"Not right now you can't!" Miguel retorts sharply, matching the expression. He's thinking that maybe this kid hasn't necessarily been outright orphaned.

His constant repetition of that statement is implying that he either ran away or was abandoned.

* * *

 _"Don't worry," he reaffirms, setting the stolen blanket around both of them. They're both shivering—it's_ so cold _right now, and it's snowing hard._

 _"I'll take care of you. I promise."_

* * *

It's later that night when Koji says something, making an effort to get his attention first. He points to the redhead before saying, "Stan."

There's an indignant sound from the no-longer-nameless boy.

* * *

 _Sometimes he just talks for the sake of it, even if Koji doesn't usually talk back._

 _When he does, Stan doesn't really know what he was saying, but it doesn't really matter._

 _It's better than feeling lonely all the time._

 _He wonders what "aniki" means for a while, since that's one word he hears a lot, before deciding to drop it._

* * *

Miguel makes his decision at 8:17 the next morning.

Those kids just won't survive by themselves, even if they've somehow been managing it for what he's as almost two years.

The thought of that just _does not sit right with him at all_.

Figuring he may as well get the worst of it over with, he makes sure the kids are still asleep (and quickly checks to make sure that Stan's temperature has really gone down a bit) before going out to ask Amelia if she still has any of her kids' old clothes.

She does, and has a very irritating smirk on her face as she says so.

Then he makes sure his schedule's clear for the next few days—he's going to have to go through _so much paperwork_ , and he's giving himself a headache just thinking about it.

After that, he'd have to set up an appointment get Koji's eyes checked at some point—he'd been walking into the edge of the table a few times.

He has a nagging feeling that it isn't going to be a budget-friendly result.

Oh well. He'd just have to deal with whatever cards he's dealt.

Who knows—maybe they'd be able to help out with a star-racer model he'd been thinking about.

They seem like smart kids.

* * *

 _He's left in a sort of stupor when the man tells him what the papers he's showing them were for, and he's wondering if he's imagining it._

 _Koji's looking questioningly at them, but a look of comprehension is slowly making its way onto his face._

 _The only reason they've been staying was because he's still "running a fever" even though he's insisted multiple times that he feels fine now (which…he kind of does, but not really…) and because the man keeps locking the doors and windows whenever he goes out—he'd learned from last time—but now…_

 _They wouldn't have to leave now._

 _They have an actual home now, and he just doesn't know how to feel about it._

 _He's not sure if he wants to believe it or not yet, but part of him_ really wants to _._


End file.
